


Lake Bresha, 200 AF

by Aurya



Category: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 12:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14020308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurya/pseuds/Aurya
Summary: On the day Lightning and her friends were branded l'Cie, the waters of Lake Bresha were turned to crystal. Since the Day of Ragnarok, there has not been a soul daring to tread on that magical surface; the fall of Cocoon generated fissures in the crystal that could entrap a grown man with a single careless step, and so government, military, and Academy all limit themselves to the ruins at the lakeside. Yet now, a dark tide has begun to stir on the petrified waves. The memories of Serah's crystal sleep, and the hero who refused to leave her side, have taken a dark form.





	1. Twilight Fragment Gamma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 200 AF seems to be a year for trouble. I mean, you only visit anywhere during the years where trouble is being had, but all the worst stuff happens in 200. I'm just looking at the Historia Crux map here, and the locations visited in 200 are Oerba (epic-scale paradox), Augusta Tower (where Adam baited Serah and Noel so he could kill them), and Vile Peaks (displaced Blitz Squadron). I'll admit Vile Peaks is kind of sharing the trouble with 10 AF, but the second fight Twilight Odin that lets you get his crystal is in 200.
> 
> Which brings us to what this fic is. Twilight Odin is awesome. Yes, I know he can't Attack a Launched enemy, and yes, I know somebody effed up the flags on his casting animation so he starts over between Ruin casts instead of just repeating the end bit. But he's still awesome. His max-level HP and Strength are better than Knight!Lightning's if you've levelled them up with the same material spread, and I have NEVER seen Uncapped Damage become relevant outside of Requiem except for MAYBE the last hit of Legion of One (disclaimer: I've never fought a Long Gui and I can't beat Yomi). However, he's the only recruitable Eidolon, and that means I can't have a whole Paradigm Pack of Eidolons. Plus the Twin Sisters get very little in this game. A curb-stomp from Caius in the opening, one appearance in Gestalt Mode during a paradox ending, and a passing mention of them -in Gestalt Mode- during Snow's last Graviton Core message. That's arguably even WORSE than not appearing at all!
> 
> Two birds. One stone.
> 
> The summary is my intention of the Historia Crux narrator's blurb when you've unlocked the area but haven't done anything through the gate. And here's a map of XIII so you guys can figure out what I'm talking about; it's not a hundred percent accurate, but it's helpful if you're not exactly fresh off the game. I had to start a new save for XIII to check the location of Anima's vestige.  
> https://www.trueachievements.com/customimages/025733.png  
> The gate they come out through is in Amid Timebound Waves, in the three-way intersection near the Silver Bangle sphere (the one with all the Breshan Bass). We are not concerned with anything past the battlefield in A Silent Maelstrom where you fight the Manasvin Warmech. And since I'm going to make mentions to the Twilight Odin fight, you get here through a crystal gate in Vile Peaks 10 AF, chaos-locked like the one on the Steppe until he's been defeated both times.
> 
> I have got to stop making fanfictional sidequests with games I can't write fight scenes for. I thought it would be fine if I did what the cutscenes and Cinematic Actions did and ignored the existence of the Paradigm Pack, but Command Synergy Battle just doesn't translate to written form. I mean, maybe if I wrote a whole novelization about it, but that's not happening.

"What the-!?"

Noel's outburst as he and Serah emerged from the time gate drew Serah's attention to their surroundings. "Oh, this is..."

Crystal. They stood on a massive formation of crystal, towering around them and arcing like waters stilled. It seemed to be late at night, for the skies were dark; yet the crystal waves glowed lightly, providing a clear view for those upon its surface. Several metal wrecks were jutting out of the crystal, although age and weather seemed to have worn them down significantly from what she remembered; there also seemed to be considerably less _arc_ to the waves higher up the area, although the lower she looked, the more the waves seemed to still be intact.

Serah's lack of surprise had Noel's attention. "You know this place?"

"Yeah," Serah confirmed. "This is Lake Bresha."

"Bresha?" Noel echoed. "Like, the ruins with Atlas?"

"Mm-hmm." Serah beckoned towards the downhill slope ahead of them. "I think they're at the bottom."

Noel shook his head. "How does a  _lake_ have a  _bottom_?" he asked.

Serah sighed, turning away form the gate. "Well, lakes tend to form waves when something really big lands in them," she pointed out. "Like... a fal'Cie."

One hand was raised, forward and skyward, and Noel turned his gaze to find something  _massive_ looming out of the crystal waves in the distance - a cross-shaped metallic figure, its lower half buried in the petrified water. It was frighteningly similar to the Proto fal'Cie that had loomed over Academia in the unaltered 400 AF; Noel realized that Hope must have based Adam on a fal'Cie he knew. "That's..."

"The Pulse Vestige," Serah remembered. "Don't worry, the fal'Cie is dead." Her head tilted to one side. "I remember it sticking out more."

"Remember?" Noel crossed his arms. "So you don't just know it - you've been here."

"Kind of," Serah confirmed. "That's the fal'Cie that branded me. After I turned to crystal, Snow and Lightning attacked the fal'Cie. The lake froze like this, and we all got scattered. Snow was trying to dig me out."

Noel glanced around. Now that he was less stunned by the spectacle of a crystal landscape, he could see several cracks and fissures across the surface, as though the entire lake had been subject to a massive impact... or tremor. "That would be before Ragnarok, right?" he asked. "Look - this place has taken a hit."

"Kupo!" Mog's interjection drew their attention. "I sense something lower down. It feels powerful, kupo."

"Might be that's why we're here," Noel observed.

* * *

Even cracked like this, the landscape of the lake was absolutely stunning; massive waves turned to crystal, forming tunnels and paths all around, with several metal structures reaching out that Serah explained were wreckages of a region in the Cocoon outskirts known as the Hanging Edge. The view was, unfortunately, a bit hindered by the presence of some of the most aggravating frog monsters, but Noel was nonetheless amazed at the sight of everything; he couldn't understand how Serah was so... nonchalant about it.

The last of the Cocoon bits they came across was the corpse of a massive train... and soon enough, they saw the source of the powerful thing Mog had noticed.

"Oh no."

"Oh,  _no!_ "

"Kupo!?"

They'd seen the same thing in the Vile Peaks - chaos swirling about a dark, shadowy figure. This time, there were visibly two figures within the chaos' storm - and Serah knew, even before they were near enough, what form those figures took. As they started down the train, the chaos seemed to burst and dissipate - and then the shadows reappeared behind them, taking clearer forms that looked mechanical. Two female forms, each with a large, extending headpiece; one was dark-skinned and covered in gold, a large wheel mounted in her headdress, while the other was pale-skinned and covered in silver, with an identical wheel floating at her side.

"Shiva!" Serah reached for Mog as she and Noel leapt away; the moogle quickly took the form of her bowsword, and as they landed she seized the blade two-handed. "This is where they fought Snow!"

"Another paradox in the form of an Eidolon!" Noel realized, pulling his weapon off his back and then drawing the shorter blade from the sheath mounted on the larger one. "How did this one go unnoticed?"

Nix drew her floating wheel back, and Serah raised her weapon. "Here they come!"

* * *

**Twilight Stiria**  
HP: 706000  
Status Immunities: Deprotect | Deshell | Poison | Imperil | Curse | Pain | Fog | Daze  
Absorbs: Ice  
Chain resistance: 90 | Stagger Point: 300%

-Employs powerful ice-based attacks  
-Healed by ice damage  
-Capable of restoring HP

 **Twilight Nix**  
HP: 706000  
Status Immunities: Deprotect | Deshell | Poison | Imperil | Curse | Pain | Fog | Daze  
Absorbs: Ice | Halves: Physical, Magical  
Chain resistance: 90 | Stagger Point: 300%

-Employs powerful ice-based attacks  
-Healed by ice damage  
-Delivers devastating physical attacks

* * *

"This isn't working!" Noel protested. "They're not going down!"

Serah quickly realized what the problem was; Stiria was healing faster than they could hurt, and Nix's relentless offensive meant they couldn't afford to deal with her first. "We need to get out of here," she insisted. "Come on!"

She quickly started back up the corpse of the train; Noel started after her as she fired a few parting shots to dissuade the Twin Sisters from following. Fortunately, the paradox had no intentions of following them; the shot collided with Nix's wheel as it was retreating to her side, and the two faded to silhouettes as the swirl of chaos remanifested around them.

The two of them stopped only after they were well out of range, beneath structures that looked like giant chains. Noel panted for a moment before turning back the way they'd come. "This is getting old," he muttered. "Freaking Eidolons!" He took a few steps forward, yelling in Shiva's direction. "Leave us alone! The goddess didn't send you to try us, what are you even doing here? We're not l'Cie!"

"You're right."

The sudden murmur drew Noel's attention, Serah had a look of realization on her face. "Wait, what?"

"We're not l'Cie," Serah echoed. "And  _they're_ not Eidolons. This is just a paradox imitating Shiva's form. Eidolons fight l'Cie as a trial, to earn the right to summon them - but they're _not_ Eidolons. That means **we're** not bound to the rules of the trial."

"Okay," Noel conceded. "And that helps us... how?"

Serah remembered the way there had only been one storm of chaos, despite there being two bodies within it. "Stiria and Nix are two halves of a single entity," she replied. "There must only be one paradox behind them both. If we can separate them, it will divide the power that the paradox has to work with. Then we can fight them separately, and prevent them from working together to stop us."

Noel reckoned that was as good a strategy as any other, but saw one flaw. "Alright, but how do we split them up?"

"Let's take a look around," Serah insisted. "We're bound to find something."

* * *

Travelling  _up_  a slope is a lot less pleasant than travelling  _down_. Serah's legs were burning before they were even back to the level of the gate, and the relatively smooth crystal surface wasn't exactly making the ascent a pleasant experience. She was quite thankful for something to take her mind off the climb when Noel spoke up as they started up to higher levels.

"Can I ask you a stupid question?" When Serah nodded, he asked, "You said you've only been here while you were sleeping in crystal. How do you know all this about the lake and the Eidolons?"

"I landed in that area where the paradox is," Serah explained, "after the Vestige fell. While I was dreaming, I... could sort of see things around me, or around the crystal tear Snow was carrying. He tried to dig me out down in the basin - that's where Shiva fought him."

"So people sleeping in crystal can see their surroundings," Noel observed. "If that's the case, your friends in Cocoon's pillar must be able to see everything on Gran Pulse."

"I guess so," Serah admitted with a small laugh. "That's actually kind of a nice thought - that they're watching over us no matter where we are."

"Well, I mean, depending on how thick the pillar is," Noel admitted. "Might be they're too deep to see anything."

"You ruined it."

"Sorry."

A bit more climbing, and they found something at the highest waves - a wrecked attack ship that looked like it had flown straight into the crystal. "And here I was hoping we'd arrived before the paradox could hurt anyone," Serah bemoaned.

Noel shook his head. "It doesn't look like it was crashed recently," he observed. "It might have been taken down by something else."

Serah noticed it had crashed at such an angle that one of its guns was sticking out of the wreck - still intact. "That looks like it'll still fire," she observed. Curious, she hopped up the corpse of the machine until she was standing behind the turret; it was lined up aiming at the basin where the paradox was, and the way the waves had broken higher up meant she had a clear shot. "This could work!"

"What could work?" Noel asked.

She quickly hopped back down. "If we trigger this, it'll shoot right at the crystals around Shiva," Serah explained. "It should break enough to separate them, and then we can take them out!"

Noel was hesitant. "That's a long way down," he reminded her. "Even if we split them up, they'll still have plenty of time to regroup before we can get there."

Serah hopped down. "Right. I'll hit it when we get down there."

"Yeah, you'll hit it when we get- wait, are you  _nuts?_ "

* * *

It was a long journey down; Noel's doubted she could make the shot, but Mog was convinced that a little moogle magic would let him guide the arrow straight to their target. When at last they arrived, Serah was about to fire when he pointed out a caveat.

"If we're going to take them down before they can regroup, we have to act fast," he insisted. "Who do you want to tackle first?"

 **LIVE TRIGGER**  
Which one will you fight first?  
_____  
Δ  
Stiria (healer) □ | O Nix (attacker)  
X  
_____

"Okay," Noel agreed. "Make the shot."

Mog quickly took the form of a bow, and Serah seized the weapon and took aim. A single arrow flew heavenward and arced in the air as they leapt down to lure out the paradox... and they couldn't even make it out in the night sky before it collided with the gun of the airship atop the waves. The gun started firing down at them, striking the crystal waves and dropping the pieces down towards them; Nix and Stiria moved aside, and Noel and Serah quickly charged one as the fragments blocked them off from the other.

* * *

**Twilight Stiria**  
HP: 706000  
Status Immunities: Curse | Pain | Fog | Daze  
Absorbs: Ice  
Chain Resistance: 70 | Stagger Point: 300%

-Employs powerful ice-based attacks  
-Healed by ice damage  
-Capable of restoring HP

 _**FRAGMENT DISCOVERED!** _  
_Twilight Fragment Gamma_  
_You obtain 3000 CP!_

* * *

**Twilight Nix**  
HP: 706000  
Status Immunities: Curse | Pain | Fog | Daze  
Absorbs: Ice | Halves: Physical, Magical  
Chain Resistance: 70 | Stagger Point: 300%

-Employs powerful ice-based attacks  
-Healed by ice damage  
-Delivers devastating physical attacks

**< > Twilight Stiria  
<> Twilight Nix**

* * *

"This fragment," Noel inquired. "Is this like with Odin, where it was the source of the paradox?" 

"That's right, kupo!" Mog confirmed. "With this, the shadows of Shiva won't be able to hurt anyone else, kupo!"

"That's a relief," Serah sighed. "Looks like we've avoided another Blitz Squadron incident."

"Looks like," Noel agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Gate Seals are nice for the storyline chapters, but they're completely useless otherwise. They don't reset ANYTHING to do with a Fragment that doesn't have a mandatory cutscene around it, which means that Yaschas 100/110, Sunleth 400, Bresha 100/300, Vile Peaks, AND the Archylte Steppe can't do anything. They don't even play the era-entering cutscenes again! I mean, it plays the one in Archylte Steppe, but that's it. All they do is put Serah and Noel back at the scorched gate. The Gate Seals for those eras are entirely and completely pointless.
> 
> Okay, the bit about the fragment and the crystal drops aren't meant to indicate each sister drops that particular one; that's just to show that you get the fragment after the first, and their monster crystals after the second. Also, the two sisters' sections being right after each other the second time around is meant to indicate that you fight them in succession. Maybe with a short wordless cutscene between them that shows the second one rounding the fallen crystal to attack.
> 
> The comment about Serah's explanation on the Hanging Edge is meant to indicate dialogue that takes place outside of battle and not in a cutscene; the same occurs when she's talking about her dreams in crystal stasis, the bit about Mog and Noel arguing about the shot, and the ending lines. I always think these things through way too much, I've got a Bestiary entry to sub in for a fight scene and Paradigm Pack info all lined up.


	2. Paradigm Pack: Twin Sisters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, I'm doing the gameplay info for my fanfictional sidequest again.  
> EDIT: Fixed a typo on Stiria's ability list that made it look like I intended for her to have an exclusive ability... and retooled Nix's because the original looks like I was on a bender when I wrote it.
> 
> Somehow, me min-maxing in XIII-2 managed to give me MORE trouble with the Winged Chaos than when I just blindly levelled the game. I mean, it might have just been me being stupid and trying to beat them with nothing but Valkyrie Lightning in my Paradigm Pack, but I was practically getting one-shotted from one of Amber's attacks. I think I should have prioritized HP first instead of Magic for Serah and Strength for Noel.  
> EDIT: I always play the game through on Easy with an effort to fight the Winged Chaos wherein my net level is no higher than 300 (enough for three roles each at Lv.99 and Lv.1). Playing on Normal improves your drop chances. Just forgot to change it back down. Wish I'd realized that BEFORE I reset my save.

**Twilight Stiria:** Medic  
ATB Level 4  
Biological | Grade: XXXXX  
Max Level: 50 | Stages: 5  
Well-Grown | Rare | Gentle

[01] Cure  
[05] Critical: Tetradefense  
[10] Cura  
[15] Esuna  
[20] Raise  
[25] Improved Cure  
[30] Curasa  
[35] Improved Raise  
[40] Resist Elements +20%  
[45] Cheer

 **FERAL LINK:** Diamond Dust [500%]

* * *

 

 **Twilight Nix:** Ravager  
ATB Level 4  
Biological | Grade: XXXXX  
Max Level: 50 | Stages: 5  
Well-Grown | Rare | Bitter

[01] Blizzard  
[04] Froststrike  
[05] Critical: Tetradefense  
[07] Blizzara  
[12] Overwhelm  
[19] Ice Blitz  
[24] Fearsiphon  
[33] Felfrost  
[41] Resist Elements: +20%  
[47] Attack: ATB Charge II  
[50] Blizzaga

 **FERAL LINK:** Diamond Dust [500%]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't trust myself to write stat growth. Both sisters are Magic-focused and their Strength sucks in comparison, so take this, halve the level axis, and switch the red and blue lines and you've got Shiva:  
> http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/File:Twilight_Odin_Development.png  
> Yes, I would have them as Well-Grown monsters with Late Bloomer stat growth. The same way the Green Chocobo, for example, is a Late Bloomer with Well-Grown stat growth. 
> 
> And of course, since half of Valfodr's point is to provide the otherwise one-time monsters as item drops, he'd need a whole 'nother level to make room for Shiva. I'm thinking a Lv 30 fight, and split up the chocobos. Silvers on Lv 15 and Stiria as the rare drop, Golds on Lv 30 and Nix as the rare drop. (Mainly because he summons one of each of the current tier's drops save for the Lv 99 fight, and he pointedly avoided summoning Twilight Odin. Can you imagine how badly you would panic if you saw him say "Come, Twilight Shiva"?)
> 
> ...You know, Valfodr is only worth having in the Paradigm Pack if you get him from Level 45 or Level 70, so you can use him -against- Lv 99. If you get him from Lv 99, he's not even worth levelling. They should have included a power boost to Caius' fights in Valhalla if you have the Paradox Scope active, just for the sake of making it less of a curb-stomp when you're maxed-out.


End file.
